Funeral
by Stolen Boats
Summary: One-shot. One of the three boys is dead and the others are grieving. Can you tell who is who?


**a/n; heat wave, no air conditioning. Sweaty and depressed. **

**Anyway, there are three characters in this: the narrator, the counterpart, and the deceased. One is Stan, one is Kyle, and one is Kenny. Can you figure out which?**

One by one they shuffled in.

_Like zombies_, he thought wryly, and across the way his counterpart thought the same.

Identical in form and nature, clothed in black with blank expressions and faces downcast. Grief was a private emotion. It wasn't something you shared.

There were disruptions, of course, as is human nature. A cough. A sneeze, maybe. Perhaps the younger ones would tug on skirts and whisper hasty questions in a mother's ears. These miniscule details flowed into each other seamlessly, empty little twitches in a river of remorse and sorrow.

There was sitting, standing, shuffling, walking, some talking and repeating things – all the usual for social events.

He sat down, like they did, and like his counterpart did too. They sat side by side and I barely noticed.

He was so lost in all of this.

Then they were looking at him, ghostly bloodshot eyes swiveling and staring him down. He was caught in the headlights, rising without telling himself to move, muscles rigidly going onward. He felt their stares bore holes in his back, felt their questioning glances and thoughts probe into his mind.

He silently wished they would all die on the spot.

"He was my friend," said his mouth, and he spied his counterpart in the front row, glassy-eyed and slack-jawed. "But…he was more of my crutch, then anything else."

There was some nervous laughter. Had that been a joke? No one could tell. More disruptions to him. Irrelevant.

"I don't know how," stumbled he, tongue as frozen as his mind. "I don't feel real anymore, now that he's not here." His eyes fell on his counterpart in the audience. "It's worse…when I look at you."

People were murmuring. Coughing, scratching the backs of their necks and wondering if it had really been a good idea to let a grief-stricken teenager give a eulogy. Meaningless disruptions in the flow of time. He didn't notice.

His counterpart rose from the chairs. He crossed the threshold. He wore brown shoes.

They stood side by side in the podium, radiating guilt. It struck the audience slowly, the ones in the front row first, then the second, then third. Like a wave they stood and stared, challenging anyone to say anything.

_Break our silence,_ they challenged silently. _Push us farther._

"I can't breathe," said his counterpart, and then he leaned into the podium and gripped it for strength.

"I can't breathe," he repeated into the microphone.

The people rippled and stirred, a few twitched. Not even disruptions, really, time was still going.

Meaningless.

"I can't forget anything anymore," he said into the microphone. It was designed for one, not to, and he and his counterpart jostled on the stage and chafed shoulder to shoulder. "He was like sunlight, sort of."

"Helpful," supplied his counterpart. "Always so helpful."

There was so much more he couldn't say. The glue that kept the three together, that was him. The helpful advice, the friendly smile offered, the pat on the back – always him. The ground was him, even, and other stupid metaphors that suddenly made sense.

The two stood on the podium for a long time, staring at each other and giving the most perfect speeches in their minds, their emotions bleeding out their eyes and pooling on the ground, invisible to the petrified audience.

"I know," his counterpart breathed in response.

He felt the brush of fabric as the two embraced, now one entity instead of two. He looked down into the shoulder, breathing in the smell of his friend, his companion.

Proof that though there were two now, there once had been three.

There were _awww_'s and cooing from the audience, even a choked sob here and there. Neither him nor his companion was aware of the noise, just of the blood rushing in their ears as they hugged, as they simultaneously thought the same things and felt the same emotions.

They left together.

**Almost a drabble, almost. Short little grief-stricken one-shot. Please review and tell me what you think!**


End file.
